For a long time now, ride leaders have been asking "What do we do with these @$&##%* sign in sheets?"Well, your wait is over, here is the answer we all have been waiting for.

Ride leaders and sign in sheets

At the start of a club ride, the ride leader should have the participants of that ride fill out the ?sign in sheet.? The sheet has the normal waiver that we have been using for a number of years. The waiver should remind the riders to be careful, and it may help protect us in the event of a problem.

We will also use the sheets to determine how many different people go on our rides. This is important because we pay liability insurance, which is based on the number of riding members.

The sign in sheet has a place for:

signature

printed name ( a lot of signatures are, let us say, hard to read)

emergency contact (someone not on the ride is best) and

the license plate of the car you expect to leave in, at the end of the ride. This last item allows the ride leader to check that everyone made it back in safely, if the group gets separated.

At the sign-in is a good time to remind the riders to ride safely and obey the rules of the road. Usually the route will be explained at this point and/or cue sheets or maps will be distributed then. Cell phone numbers can also be exchanged or, if two way radios will be used, all can be set to the same channel.

After the ride we would like the leader to send us the sheet. This can be done a number of ways.

One is to scan the sheet and save it as a ?PDF? file or other standard format. (Please use the destination of the ride as the name of the file, when you save it.) This file can then be sent as an attachment to

This is an email account that has been set up solely for this purpose.

Another is, fax it to 267-630-6296.

Or mail the sheet to:

Dick Porterfield108 poplar Hill RoadBinghamton, NY 13901He will then do the scan and email stuff. Or bike over to his house and slide it under the door.

Lastly, just give the form to someone else, willing to send it in.

Finally, thanks for leading a ride. We hope that this is not too burdensome.The new sheets are designed to remind people to be a little more careful, and give the ride leader more information if something does happen. Compiling the information from the sheets should give us more accurate numbers which will likely save us money.